Language deprivation experiments have been claimed to have been attempted at least four times through history, isolating infants from the normal use of spoken or signed language in an attempt to discover the fundamental character of human nature or the origin of language.
The American literary scholar Roger Shattuck called this kind of research study the "forbidden experiment" because of the exceptional deprivation of ordinary human contact it requires. [1] Although not designed to study language, similar experiments on primates (labelled the "pit of despair") utilising complete social deprivation resulted in serious psychological disturbances.
An early record of a study of this kind can be found in Herodotus's Histories . According to Herodotus (c. 485–425 BC), the Egyptian pharaoh Psamtik I (664–610 BC) carried out such a study, and concluded the Phrygians must antedate the Egyptians since the child had first spoken something similar to the Phrygian word bekos, meaning "bread". [2] Recent researchers suggest this was likely a willful interpretation of the child's babbling. [3] [4]
An experiment allegedly carried out by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the 13th century saw young infants raised without human interaction in an attempt to determine if there was a natural language that they might demonstrate once their voices matured. It is claimed he was seeking to discover what language would have been imparted into Adam and Eve by God. The experiments were recorded by the monk Salimbene di Adam in his Chronicles, who was generally extremely negative about Fredrick II (portraying his calamities as parallel to the Biblical plagues in The Twelve Calamities of Emperor Frederick II) and wrote that Frederick encouraged "foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no ways to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which he took to have been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments." [5] [ full citation needed ]
A few centuries after Frederick II's alleged experiment, James IV of Scotland was said to have sent two children to be raised by a mute woman isolated on the island of Inchkeith, to determine if language was learned or innate. [6] The children were reported to have spoken good Hebrew, but historians were sceptical of these claims soon after they were made. [7] [8]
Mughal emperor Akbar was later said to have children raised by mute wetnurses. Akbar held that speech arose from hearing; thus children raised without hearing human speech would become mute. [9]
Some authors have doubted whether or how exactly the experiments of Psamtik I and James IV actually took place; [10] and probably the same goes for that of Frederick II. [11] Akbar's study is most likely authentic, but offers an ambiguous outcome. [10]
Most examples of language deprivation "experiments" were case studies where human children raised in deprivation were studied after the fact rather than chosen beforehand in a designed experiment. [12]
Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom situated in the west of Asia Minor, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis.
Victor of Aveyron was a French feral child who was found around the age of 9. Not only is he considered one of the most famous feral children, but his case is also the most documented case of a feral child. Upon his discovery, he was captured multiple times, running away from civilization approximately eight times. Eventually, his case was taken up by a young physician, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, who worked with the boy for five years and gave him his name, Victor. Itard was interested in determining what Victor could learn. He devised procedures to teach the boy words and recorded his progress. Based on his work with Victor, Itard broke new ground in the education of the developmentally delayed.
Gyges was the founder of the Mermnad dynasty of Lydian kings and the first known king of the Lydian kingdom to have attempted to transform it into a powerful empire. Gyges reigned 38 years according to Herodotus.
Wahibre Psamtik I was the first pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the Saite period, ruling from the city of Sais in the Nile delta between 664 and 610 BC. He was installed by Ashurbanipal of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, against the Kushite rulers of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, but later gained more autonomy as the Assyrian Empire declined.
Harry Frederick Harlow was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation, dependency needs, and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which manifested the importance of caregiving and companionship to social and cognitive development. He conducted most of his research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow worked with him for a short period of time.
Salimbene di Adam, O.F.M., was an Italian Franciscan friar, theologian, and chronicler. Salimbene was one of the most celebrated Franciscan chroniclers of the High Middle Ages. His Cronica is a fundamental source for Italian history of the 13th century.
The Battle of Parma was fought on 18 February 1248 between the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and the Lombard League. The Guelphs attacked the Imperial camp when Frederick II was away. The Imperial forces were defeated and much of Frederick's treasure was lost.
Bianca Lancia d'Agliano, was an Italian noblewoman. She was the mistress and later, possibly the last wife of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II. The marriage was conducted while she was on her deathbed, therefore it was considered non-canonical.
Andrea Carlo Moro is an Italian linguist, neuroscientist and novelist.
Ladice or Ladice of Cyrene was a Greek Cyrenaean princess and a member of the Battiad dynasty. She married the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amasis II. When Amasis died in 526 BC, she returned from Egypt back to Cyrene, in modern-day Libya.
Maternal deprivation is a scientific term summarising the early work of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby on the effects of separating infants and young children from their mother. Although the effect of loss of the mother on the developing child had been considered earlier by Freud and other theorists, Bowlby's work on delinquent and affectionless children and the effects of hospital and institutional care led to his being commissioned to write the World Health Organization's report on the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe whilst he was head of the Department for Children and Parents at the Tavistock Clinic in London after World War II. The result was the monograph Maternal Care and Mental Health published in 1951, which sets out the maternal deprivation hypothesis.
A feral child is a young individual who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, with little or no experience of human care, social behavior, or language. Such children lack the basics of primary and secondary socialization. The term is used to refer to children who have suffered severe abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away. They are sometimes the subjects of folklore and legends, often portrayed as having been raised by animals. While there are many cases of children being found in proximity to wild animals, there are no eyewitness accounts of animals feeding human children.
In classical antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires of the time.
The Armeno-Phrygians are a hypothetical people of West Asia during the Bronze Age, the Bronze Age collapse, and its aftermath. They would be the common ancestors of both Phrygians and Proto-Armenians. In turn, Armeno-Phrygians would be the descendants of the Graeco-Phrygians, common ancestors of Greeks, Phrygians, and also of Armenians.
Language deprivation is associated with the lack of linguistic stimuli that are necessary for the language acquisition processes in an individual. Research has shown that early exposure to a first language will predict future language outcomes. Experiments involving language deprivation are very scarce due to the ethical controversy associated with it. Roger Shattuck, an American writer, called language deprivation research "The Forbidden Experiment" because it required the deprivation of a normal human. Similarly, experiments were performed by depriving animals of social stimuli to examine psychosis. Although there has been no formal experimentation on this topic, there are several cases of language deprivation. The combined research on these cases has furthered the research in the critical period hypothesis and sensitive period in language acquisition.
Language acquisition is a natural process in which infants and children develop proficiency in the first language or languages that they are exposed to. The process of language acquisition is varied among deaf children. Deaf children born to deaf parents are typically exposed to a sign language at birth and their language acquisition follows a typical developmental timeline. However, at least 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents who use a spoken language at home. Hearing loss prevents many deaf children from hearing spoken language to the degree necessary for language acquisition. For many deaf children, language acquisition is delayed until the time that they are exposed to a sign language or until they begin using amplification devices such as hearing aids or cochlear implants. Deaf children who experience delayed language acquisition, sometimes called language deprivation, are at risk for lower language and cognitive outcomes. However, profoundly deaf children who receive cochlear implants and auditory habilitation early in life often achieve expressive and receptive language skills within the norms of their hearing peers; age at implantation is strongly and positively correlated with speech recognition ability. Early access to language through signed language or technology have both been shown to prepare children who are deaf to achieve fluency in literacy skills.
The first Achaemenid conquest of Egypt took place in 525 BCE, leading to the foundation of the Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the "First Egyptian Satrapy". Egypt thus became a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire until 404 while still maintaining Egyptian royalty customs and positions. The conquest was led by Cambyses II, who defeated the Egyptians at the Battle of Pelusium, and crowned himself pharaoh. Achaemenid rule was disestablished upon the rebellion and crowning of Amyrtaeus as Pharaoh. A second period of Achaemenid rule in Egypt occurred under the Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt.
The name Armeno-Phrygian is used for a hypothetical language branch, which would include the languages spoken by the Phrygians and the Armenians, and would be a branch of the Indo-European language family, or a sub-branch of either the proposed "Graeco-Armeno-Aryan" or "Armeno-Aryan" branches. According to this hypothesis, Proto-Armenian was a language descendant from a common ancestor with Phrygian and was closely related to it. Proto-Armenian differentiated from Phrygian by language evolution over time but also by the Hurro-Urartian language substrate influence. Classification is difficult because little is known of Phrygian, but Proto-Armenian arguably forms a subgroup with Greek and Indo-Iranian.
Professor John Downing, an educational psychologist, proposed the cognitive clarity theory of learning to read in a paper which he presented to the annual meeting of the United Kingdom Literacy Association between the 23rd and 28th of July, 1971.